


The Mannequin

by arkngard



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Fear Mythos, Fearblogs, Slender Man Mythos, Slenderblogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 19:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21481276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkngard/pseuds/arkngard
Summary: A university film student buys a mannequin to use in a slendervlog.
Kudos: 1





	The Mannequin

I studied film as a university undergraduate. Since childhood I had a deep appreciation for the art of cinema. I was amazed by the magic that could be created through film—the worlds, the people, the exciting action and the passionate romances. Even as a young child, I could tell that the potential of film as a storytelling medium was limitless.

However, my great awakening as an aspiring filmmaker was watching the YouTube series _Marble Hornets_, and later series such as _TirbeTwelve_ and _Everyman HYBRID_. There was just something, I can’t entirely describe it, about these series and the intricacies that went into making them that deeply, utterly fascinated me as a person who appreciates film as an artistic medium. Seeing these series inspired me so completely that I knew I had to make something like them; it was a strange compulsion that drove me forward in this endeavour.

My parents had bought me a small camera when I was younger, but I never really found a use for it in my youth. I had brought it with me when I left my small hometown for university, even though at that time I had yet to decide to pursue film at that time; during my third month there a friend of mine had told me about the aforementioned web series, and shortly thereafter I formally declared myself a film major. It may have been too late at that time to register for film classes, but I knew that, in preparation for the next semester, I would start working on my own web series project over winter break.

I spent the rest of that semester planning the series out in between my coursework; my social life started to decline somewhat, but I knew it would be a small price to pay when my work was public and widely-viewed. The more progress I made on writing the series, the slower the semester seemed to crawl; anticipation excited me almost to the point of obsession.

When the semester ended, the first thing I did upon my return home was buy an old mannequin from a small, shabby clothing store that was going out of business. The storefront had a dreadful visage, like only an old building in rural Georgia can, which, combined with the opening of a new mall the next town over, spelled the end of that lonely store’s life. The mannequin I bought, itself, had a faint, unsettling presence to it; I knew it would be perfect for what I planned to use it for, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else to it, some sort of sinister energy within it.

Upon my arrival back home, I dressed the mannequin in an old suit that my father passed down to me in my final days in high school. The suit wasn’t quite the right size, but I liked the effect that had on the mannequin’s stature. It wouldn’t be that hard to shoot around, either, so I had no reason to stress over it.

I started filming two days later, after finalising my plans for the beginning of the series. In the time between buying the mannequin and the start of filming, I had left the mannequin in the guest bedroom upstairs, since I didn’t like the idea of it being in the same room as me while I slept. Filming itself, however, went spectacularly; the unedited footage I generated proved to me to be quite unsettling on its own. When I went to edit the video I had taken, I found myself discouraged, if only for a moment, because I did not know the first thing about editing video.

After several fruitless hours in editing, I found myself exhausted from the day’s work, and after a light meal I had noticed that the sun had gone down hours prior. I returned the mannequin to its spot in the upstairs room and turned in for the night. Sleep did not come well to me. For hours I laid in my bed with my eyes closed, unsuccessful in my attempts to pass from the waking world into the land of dreams.

That’s when I heard it.

There were muffled sounds coming from the upstairs room; it sounded like footfall. So as to not disturb my parents’ slumber, I picked up my camera, to use its night vision to aid my sight, and to potentially generate evidence of an intruder in our house if that were indeed the case, and crept quietly up the stairs and towards the ever-so-slightly ajar door of the guest room. I pushed the door open as quietly as possible and stepped into the dark room.

In the camera’s view-screen was a sight I never would have expected to see in all my days alive. The mannequin was walking by itself through the room, propelled by some unknown force and with human-like motion. After but a moment it turned around, and, now facing me, inexplicably vanished from my sight and from the camera’s sight. I turned to the right, towards the wall that I had propped that accursed mannequin against after filming, and there it stood unmoving. In my shock from seeing such a sight I grew faint, and fell unconscious onto the floor.

I awoke on the floor of the guest bedroom after several hours had passed and the sun had again risen. My camera was had fallen out of my hand when I fell and was lying on the floor a few inches from my outstretched hand, powered off, and that daemoniac mannequin was still stood against the wall where I had left it the night before.

I raced back downstairs to my room to plug my camera into a power source and to check the recording from that night’s frightful encounter. The footage showed me exactly what I remember happening: The mannequin once again walked its horrifying walk around the darkened room and once again vanished when it saw that I was watching. I grew manic upon seeing that hellish event happen a second time, and decided to remove the mannequin from my life for ever. I put it in the backseat of my car, drove to the junkyard outside of town, and left it there to rot.

####

It’s been several years since the incident involving that daemon of a mannequin. I did not work on that web series again after that night; I deleted the footage that I had recorded, and when my friends asked about it upon my return to university after winter break ended, I merely told them that there were complications and that I could not get any meaningful work done on it. Despite that, I grew to become a successful film student, and eventually graduated with flying colours.

The night after graduation, however, was a night I would never forget. I moved into an apartment with a few of the friends I had made in the film programme on the other side of town from campus. They had all gone out to celebrate graduation with a bar crawl; I never liked the taste of alcohol, so I elected to remain at the apartment. After several hours, late into the night, I heard a knock on the door, which I thought would be them returning from their night of merriment. After but a moment passed I was out of my room and opening the apartment door.

On the other side of the door stood the mannequin.


End file.
